The snack food market is booming, and has been for several years, as more of us rely on the ease of grabbing food on the go. So what can your organic CPG do to ensure that those hands are reaching out to grab your products?
It’s 2022, so there’s no arguing that your online strategy is the place to start your marketing overhaul. While in-store placement and word-of-mouth marketing is still important, the online space is where you’ll win new customers and keep your brand at the top of peoples’ minds.
As a brand, your online presence is the best way to show off who you are as a company, connect with your customers, and show them exactly why your products are better than anything else on the market.
This blog post is all about how to make your brand stand out online in such an overly-saturated space –– let’s get to it!
1. Connect with Influencers from many demographics
Influencers are the answer to almost every social media and online marketing question. If you’ve worked with an influencer or content creator before, you’ll understand exactly how much awareness and revenue they can bring in for a brand.
Influencers have spent years building up an engaged and loyal audience ー by collaborating with them, you can tap into this audience. It’s an automatic in with a whole new group of potential customers.
We trust influencers over brands
An Edelman study found that 63 percent of respondents aged 18 to 34 trust what an influencer says about a brand more than what the brand says about itself in advertising. In the 2000s, brands turned to celebrity spokespeople to endorse their products, but now, online consumers are much more likely to trust the word of an influencer.
In fact, 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement.
The CPG industry is perfect for working with influencers ー snack foods are already an everyday part of consumers’ lives, so it’s only natural for creators to share their favorite brands.
Instead of going all-out with sales-focused campaigns, when working with influencers it’s better to have a goal of brand awareness. We use social media for entertainment and education, not to have ads stuffed down our throats.
Treat influencers like testimonials
A better way to drive revenue is to use influencer campaigns to introduce people to your brand and products through authentic testimonials from creators who have established a trusted following.
Think about your customer base and seek out influencers in the same space. Better yet, see if there are any creators out there already talking up your products on social media, and forge a formal partnership.
Take a look at Bare Snacks as an example. They’ve partnered with mommy bloggers and high-quality foodie influencers who share recipes using Bare Snacks products on Instagram, which the brand then also shares as blog posts on their website.
2. Build an engaging video strategy
Video is the best medium for marketing. Photos are great, blog posts are effective, but the power of a video ー shared on social media or your website ー is unbeatable.
First of all, having videos embedded on your website will boost your SEO astronomically, in fact it makes you 53 times more likely to show up on Google.
Just one look at the social media landscape in 2022 shows the importance of video. TikTok – a video-only platform – has exploded in the last few years. In response, Instagram launched Reels, which are favored by the algorithm far more than static image posts. YouTube has two billion monthly users, 40% of Americans use Snapchat, and more than 4 billion video views take place on Facebook every single day.
So, yeah. Video is pretty important. Here are some things to consider when building your video strategy:
Embrace live video
Live video streams, hosted on Facebook or Instagram, are a great way to interact with your followers in a more casual, unscripted way. As you stream, you can reply in real-time to user comments ー Instagram even allows you to invite followers to join the stream.
Live video is an ideal format for Q&A sessions or product launches ー 49% of online shoppers say they would buy products directly from live videos where brands are launching new products.
Spread the love across platforms
It’s good to be present on a variety of different social channels, depending on where your audience is. If your customer base skews older, perhaps Facebook and Instagram are your best bet ー but if you’re marketing to Gen Z then TikTok and YouTube are ideal places to be.
Every platform is different, though, so you can’t just recycle the same content across them all. TikTok videos should be unfiltered and genuine, Instagram videos tend to be more polished and aspirational, while YouTube is a great medium for longer informative or behind-the-scenes videos.
Work with experts
If you’re new to creating online video, it’s time to call in the experts. When done well, videos can be incredibly powerful ー but if they’re done sloppily they’ll inevitably fall flat.
Whether you work with influencers on video campaigns, or you contract a professional social video creator, it’s worth spending a bit more money to guarantee success.
One of our favorite snack brands killing it on TikTok is Brodough, a small business selling protein cookie dough. Erica, the founder, has created a wonderful TikTok presence that’s garnered her a quarter of a million followers. She shares product launches, memes, replies to follower questions, jumps on trends, and generally embraces the mood of the platform.
3. Create recipes and new ways to use your products
If you want customers to keep coming back to your brand and products, you need to keep things interesting for them. With so many options on the market, why should people continue to buy your brand?
One way to do this is by constantly launching new products and flavors ー but that’s a massive undertaking. An easier way to stay fresh is by giving customers new and exciting ways to use your products.
Then you can get creative with how you share them:
- Blog posts of the recipes on your website with images that readers can pin to Pinterest
- Engaging TikTok and Reels videos of how to make the recipe
- Aesthetic filtered Instagram shots of the final product
- Influencer campaigns where each creator is challenged to make something fun with your product.
Best social media platforms for marketing organic snack foods
Food, especially purpose-driven, organic food, always does well on social media. It’s the kind of thing people aspire to eat and love to share ー more so than fast food or a frozen meal.
When marketing an organic snack brand, you’re already at a bit of an advantage. Stick to Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok as your main channels ー especially if your audience skews young. Check out our detailed guide to marketing on these platforms for more info!
Are you launching an organic CPG brand and looking for a distributor?
Buffalo Market is the answer. We’re a leading California-based distribution company focused on working with brands that care about the planet and our future.
We work with mission-driven brands, doing everything we can to help them thrive and succeed in the food and beverage market.
Interested in hearing more? Get in touch today and let’s see how we can work together.
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